


This Was A Home Once

by mabledonut



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: But he's getting better, Depressed Klaus is not the best Klaus, Everyone on this show needs therapy but they ain't gonna get it, Gen, I've never written for this fandom before and I hope I got the details right, Kinda Fluffy, Oops this turned long, Other, Post-Apocalypse recovery, Rating is for swearing, Sad Klaus Hargreeves, The girls are in it too, They say shit more times than an episode of Stranger Things does, but way in the background, kinda sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23497909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabledonut/pseuds/mabledonut
Summary: “Let’s try them all," said Ben, folding his arms over his unbreathing chest. "Twenty bucks says one of my ideas gets him to laugh before one of your ideas does.”“You’re on,” said Klaus immediately.He’d do just about anything for twenty bucks.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 253





	This Was A Home Once

**Author's Note:**

> Title stolen from the song by the Bad Suns.

_***_

_This Was A Home Once._

***

“ _I’m Diego, and I’m stupid,_ ” said Ben as they waited in the car for Diego to finish brooding.

“ _I’m Diego, and I take way too long in the bathroom,”_ returned Klaus tiredly. 

“ _I’m Diego, and I wet myself over temporal anomalies_. Actually, twenty bucks says that so-called Manchild is not our Number Five at all, but an imposter from an alien world.”

“Another one?” Klaus let his stupidly sober head fall back against the back of the seat. Odds of Five being an actual alien versus odds of Ben coming up with a plan for an actual twenty bucks for Klaus to steal… He grinned out the window, without smiling.

“You’re on.”

“Admit it, Klaus: that kid’s gotta be an alien. The Five _we_ knew would have died laughing at that funeral.”

“But he’s only been back for three hours,” Klaus said, spreading his hands helplessly. “Maybe he’s still jet-lagged.”

“Ha! Remember that time, after the flight home from Paris?” Ben snorted into his jacket sleeve. “Oh my god.”

Klaus snapped his fingers and pointed at Ben. “See, _that_ was jetlagged Five. And _that_ kid was _hilarious._ This new little shrimpy fourth grader -- well, it’s the same guy, but he completely amputated his sense of humor.”

“Well… that’s better than an incomplete amputation?”

“Ha ha,” Klaus said humorlessly.

Back in the day, Five was a very, very easy child to crack up. As an elementary-aged kid, he had laughed frequently. Not inanely, just frequently, like the whole world of crime-fighting and hand-to-hand combat training and systematic abuse was just generally _funny_ , to him. Sociopathic devil-child that he was. Maybe it had been his overactive sarcastic side, or his way of coping with repeated trauma, but also, he just seemed to be genuinely entertained by most things.

And Little Five’s laugh -- Klaus called back the distant memory -- it was a _really_ stupid-sounding laugh, too. _AAAAH-hahaha-HA_ , child-Five would snort, his head lolling back, then tucking in towards his chest bone, his shoulders shaking as he gave himself over to amusement… 

(They had all adored that stupid laugh).

Five had made the others laugh, too, whenever possible, always ready with a zinger of a line, or a snide but amusing comment, or, when words failed him, he’d just start pulling Charlie-Chaplin and Buster Keaton-worthy spatial-jumping gags. It was nearly always for Vanya’s sake (how softly she would giggle... ), but Klaus and Allison and Ben hadn’t exactly been made of stone. Ben claimed he had once seen the corner of Dad’s mouth twitch slightly, after Five delivered some quip or other. Five had even made _Mom_ laugh, from time to time. It took a special kind of clever to make an A.I. actually burst out laughing. 

And unlike the rest of them, Five had never been embarrassed to laugh at his _own_ jokes, too. Even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones (Five had a _weird_ sense of humor). He would grin and smile and snicker and chuckle with the best of them, just to have a good time…

Yeah, out of the seven kids, it was Luther, not Five, who had always been the sibling it was impossible to crack up. And Diego would pretend to be unamused by anything, copying Luther like his life depended on it. Which was a whole nother kind of funny in itself, that Five and Klaus and Ben would frequently mimic behind Diego’s back… Ben with the least skill, Five with the most dead-on timing, and Klaus with the most exaggeration, but no matter who was doing them, Diego-impersonating-Luther impersonations were _always_ hilarious… 

“I’ve missed that stupid bastard.”

(They’d been a _Set_ , here and there, just occasionally when the same jokes occurred to all of them at the same time: _456, 456, 456…_ ).

“Yeah… me too.”

Ben folded his arms over his unbreathing chest. “And now, what, we finally have Five back, but he’s totally unfunny and serious?”

Klaus shrugged.

“So let’s do something about it,” said Ben, drumming his fingers against his chin thoughtfully, his other hand cupping his elbow. “Pranks? Puns? Witticisms? Imitations? Bad dancing? Cat videos? Generally outrageous behavior?”

Klaus shrugged again.

“Let’s try them all. Twenty bucks says one of my ideas gets him to laugh before one of your ideas does.”

“You’re on,” said Klaus immediately. 

He’d do just about anything for twenty bucks.

***

“This is my nicest outfit.”

…Resulted in a dead-eyed stare.

***

They’d _barely_ gotten started on the Osso Bucco story, which was a _hilarious_ story. So what if it also reeked of desperation and sadness, according to Ben. Five liked that kind of thing.

Supposedly.

***

_This is it_ , thought Klaus with sharp, sudden glee, the moment Five appeared on the fire escape above him. If sitting in a dumpster eating stale breakfast food of questionable origins didn’t get a peep of laughter out of little Five, nothing would.

Two minutes of conversation later: 

Still nothing.

The disappointment was so squashingly heavy, it made Klaus angry.

“I swear to God, Ben, I’m going to make this kid laugh if it kills me trying.”

“Well, I’m going to make him laugh if it _unkills_ me trying.”

Klaus raised an eyebrow at his deceased brother.

“Worth a try,” Ben said with a shrug.

***

However, Ben’s idea for how to get Five to laugh turned out to be so awful and stupid, even _Klaus_ refused to try it.

***

“This is impossible!” pouted Klaus. “Even stealing from the mini-mart got us nowhere. And Five used to _love_ stealing from mini-marts.”

Ben leaned back against the mirror and sighed, giving Klaus his _it’s not like I get paid to try to cheer you up_ look. “He was maybe kinda smirking when you mentioned chocolate pudding. _And_ I don’t think he was holding it in very well when you smashed the snowglobe on your forehead.”

“Stop it with the pity pep-talk, Ben. This is impossible. That kid is repressing _everything_ ,” complained Klaus, yanking on the faucet of the upstairs tub, stoked as hell to be bath-prepping at last, even if the knob was fighting him on the whole _turning on_ issue. “That chocolate pudding story is hilarious.”

“Not as funny as you eating a bagel straight from the dumpster.”

“I _try_ ,” said Klaus dramatically, whirling in place to face Ben, sending clouds of bath bubbles flying from the bottle in his other hand. “I sacrifice my body. My taste buds. My crystal clear criminal record--” (Ben threw his head back and chortled), “for some petty larceny, all to get a rise out of him. And what reward do I get for all my travails? Appreciation? Applause?”

“Digestive issues, a concussion, an enraged mini-mart manager who has every reason to be angry?”

“I’ve given up on laughter. All I want is one stupid smile out of him. What an asshole that child turned out to be.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“Okay, fine, then,” said Klaus, ceding the fight to the faucet for a moment, and whirling around again, plunking himself down on the tiled floor. “Advise me, mon frere.” On any given day, Ben was the French brother, Five was the Spanish hermano, and anybody at all could be a German bruder, including Allison, Vanya, and Mom, because _bruder_ was a really fun word. 

Ben jumped off the counter and ghosted over to the tub, fiddling with the knobs fruitlessly. _Dude, you’re dead. You can’t fix the bathtub anymore._ “You’re gonna need a much darker sense of humor,” he told Klaus after a minute. “Gallows-style jokes. Really heavy-handed stuff.”

“Ugh,” Klaus recoiled, making a face. “The house style, you mean? You know I hate that crap. Oh, wait--maybe I should re-try my _dad playing tennis with Hitler_ joke!”

“Meh,” said Ben, shrugging.

Klaus finger-gunned him. “That was a funny one.”

Ben shrugged again. “Meh.”

Klaus scowled at him. “Fine, then. Get outta here, Caspar. I need to shower.”

“ _Shower_! BAH-Ha. Now _that’s_ funny.”

But Ben shoved his dead ass off the edge of the tub and floated out the door.

Klaus sighed happily, eagerly divesting himself of all clothing as he started the tub faucet running. Hooray! It was working! Somehow. Baths were for geniuses; showers were for morons.

He and Ben had been waiting for _years_ for Reggie to die. Call it sick, or sinful, or bad-karma invoking, or morally-wrong, or ungrateful, or highly psychotic, or _whatever_ \-- Klaus had never felt happier in recent years than when he’d sat up in that ambulance and seen the news of his father’s death flash across the screen.

_Dad’s finally dead, and I can go home and finally have the tub all to myself._

That pretty much summed it up.

Dad’s death, lamentable though it wasn’t, meant a tub, a bed, a well-stocked kitchen, and generally, shelter from the hazards of living on the streets. He knew Ben was elated they were finally home again, too. Klaus sank into the hot water, reveling in the feeling of being healthy, warm, and clean, for fucking _once_ \-- screw the others, including Five and his sad, humorless bullshit… 

Life was good.

Maybe it would stay good for another two or three minutes. After all, Reginald was dead, Number Five was back, Klaus was taking a _bath_ , and therefore he was gonna revel, because nothing could possibly ruin this moment…

***

“The ice cream truck _was_ pretty funny. I saw him laughing, I think.”

It was the first thing Klaus had spoken to Ben in ten months. He tried to put a smidgen of _I’m sorry_ into his voice, trying not to let his mind wander back to _watching someone else throw their life away_ in the closet at the motel.

Ben smiled lukewarmly at him, all forgiveness, as always. “Liar. All you could see was the back of his head. And anyway, the ice cream truck was _my_ idea.”

Klaus smiled back, tried not to sigh.

***

Against all odds, really and truly _all_ odds, it wasn’t Klaus or Ben who finally made Five laugh, but _Luther._

Of all people.

It was on pizza night, six weeks after Five brought them back through time, to a week before the edge of the Apocalypse of Vanya’s concert, three days before Klaus left for Vietnam. (Time was hard; it made Klaus’ head hurt thinking about it).

Pizza Night this week had, incidentally, turned into Boy’s Night, since the girls had gone out to the theaters to watch some Jane Austen movie or other. Historical dramas weren't really Klaus’ favorite thing, but he would have loved to have gone with them, if only to laugh at the outrageous outfits and overdone accents. He’d thought Ben would want to go, because Ben was a literanerd, but surprisingly, Ben had vetoed movie night with the girls.

Ben said he wanted to stay at home and pretend to eat pizza. 

(Klaus was 85% sure Ben just voted that because he wanted to make Klaus eat something resembling a balanced meal, instead of living on popcorn and sour cherryheads.

Ben was _not_ a fun person anymore.

And Klaus was letting himself become _way_ too controlled by Ben).

“Nobody better touch my cheese pizza while I take this one over to Pogo’s room,” Luther announced to the assembled brothers as he pulled the first pizza from the oven, its aroma filling the air. He pointed the pizza slicer at each one of them in turn, including the to-him-empty chair where Ben was sitting. “And I don’t want anyone giving Pogo flack for substituting bananas for pepperoni, and I don’t want anyone giving _me_ flack just because I eat an entire pizza by myself.”

“Screw you, Moon Rock. I’ll eat any damn pizza I want,” decreed Diego before Luther even set down the pizza. Klaus raised an eyebrow at him. Must be feeling awful feisty tonight. Diego caught his eye and leaned back in his chair, tossing and catching a jar of red pepper flakes with one hand and drumming his fingertips impatiently on the tabletop with the other.

“Wait for me to get back, okay?” said Luther, without leaving. Almost like he didn't trust them, or something.

“Let’s just eat,” grumbled Five, who seemed overtaxed by this whole situation. (Ben, the Food Police, had noticed a couple of weeks back that Five also struggled to feed himself healthy and nutritious meals on a regular basis, and had insisted that Klaus insist on Five joining them. He had even authorized Klaus to use the _your dead brother wants you there_ card, and despite the fact that none of the others could see Ben, they always believed Klaus was honestly reporting Ben’s every thought and feeling. Suckers and dum-dums, every last one of them).

“I know! Let’s say grace while he’s gone!” said Klaus with a benign smile.

“Screw that, too,” replied Five darkly.

“Wait,” Klaus chortled, teed up, “Screw _what_ \--”

“Klaus, shut the hell up with the dumbass, twisted, terrible _your mom_ jokes,” demanded Diego, very rudely, as he chucked the red pepper flakes can at Luther, who fumbled at first but then barely caught it with his giant oven-mitted hand; then, while Luther was distracted with catching, Diego darted up like lightning and grabbed Luther’s pizza, shoved a slice of scalding hot cheese in his mouth, then immediately spat it out screaming _hot hot hot fire hot_ . Meanwhile, Luther carefully set down the pepper flakes, clasped his two mitted hands together, and made an impromptu victory cheer for himself, let loose with a _My name’s Diego, and I’m a moron_ Diego-impersonation, then capped it off with a _“Suck_ it, Diego,” as he passed Diego the ice cube tray from the freezer on his way out the door to Pogo's room.

Somewhere in the middle of the usual insanity, Five choked, then broke down.

He laughed so hard, he started crying into his breadsticks.

“...God _damn_ , Luther,” swore Klaus, staring daggers at Luther, who returned Klaus’ glare with a baffled look.

Which only made Five laugh harder. 

“AAAAH-hahaha-HAAAA...”

His shoulders were shaking and his whole face was turning red.

“Uh… okay,” Luther announced awkwardly, as they all watched Five laugh, all except Diego, who was still sucking down ice water. "I’m gonna take Pogo his pizza before it gets cold. Somebody give Five CPR if he laughs too hard while I'm gone."

Five laughed even harder.

(Klaus was hit with a sudden, random, paranoid thought: Had Five somehow known about their bet this whole time…? Had he erupted right at this moment just because his whole life mission was to deprive Klaus of twenty bucks, time after time…?)

“God damn,” sighed Ben softly. “Luther wins a competition he didn’t even know existed.” 

“How predictable. Partial credit to Diego for sacrificing all his dignity,” said Klaus, casting a sad glance at their Number Two, who currently had his face stuck under the cold water faucet, slurping noisily. 

“What dignity,” said Ben and Luther in tandem, Luther from down the hall.

Klaus and Ben exchanged a surprised look.

They’d been underestimating Monkey Boy.

And Five just kept on laughing.

***

But it was Ben who he wanted to cry with, apparently.

Five came storming into their (Klaus and Ben’s) room with zero preamble. He _did_ use the door, surprisingly enough. The problem was, he barged in at four minutes after four in the morning, when Klaus had just _barely_ finished Ben’s longass conversation about swamp creatures and whether the Loch Ness monster was a dinosaur, or possibly a long-lost sibling of theirs; had just _barely_ managed to nudge himself off into the land of dreams… 

“Is he --”

Klaus flew upright in bed, thoroughly spooked--then, when he saw it was just Five, and not the ghost of Christmas past, or the Christmas before that, or the Christmas before the Christmas before that (who was a motherfucking _nightmare_ to deal with), groaned and collapsed back into a prone position, flinging his arm over his eyes. Lord Grouchiness Himself, at four o’fuck a.m. That was just GREAT. Klaus was gonna be a mess all day, if he didn’t get his eleven hours of beauty rest in.

When Five never finished his aborted sentence, Klaus removed his arm from his eyes and cracked one eyelid open. 

“Uh...Five, what the hell…?”

Five was peering around the dark room, this way and that. Klaus threw a pillow at him, and it hit him in the shoulder. Five flinched, hard, well after it made contact.

_WOW_ , thought Klaus. First time his oddball little brother had ever been hit by a projectile, that Klaus knew of anyway.

“You okay, little man?”

“Is--”

And then, weirdest of weird moments, Five started crying. Silently. But obviously.

“Crap,” Ben whispered from the window seat, his eyes bugging out.

“Crap indeed,” murmured Klaus, mystified at what he was supposed to do to comfort his tiny but frightening assassin-brother. He didn’t want to get decapitated, after all. 

“Is Ben here?” asked Five, wiping either snot or tears with his sleeve.

Klaus pointed at the windowsill, where Bluebell was sleeping, curled in a pillow next to Ben’s lap. Bluebell was the ugly, scrawny, orange-and-white kitten that Ben had insisted on collecting from the gutter a few weeks ago, and was now _fostering_ in Klaus’ room. _Fostering, Ben. Not adopting_. Klaus was allergic to cats. If not to their fur, then to their mean, holier-than-thou cat attitudes.

“Can…”

“Oh!” said Klaus, suddenly even more uncomfortable. “Well, I can try, I guess.”

“I believe in you,” said Five very simply, making everything _that much more uncomfortable._

Klaus gave it his best college try, but Ben remained stubbornly invisible to the non-Four eye.

Klaus collapsed his not-blue hands. 

“Sorry,” he said, hoping Five would let him off the hook. It was 4 in the goddamn morning, after all.

“Try again,” said Ben and Five at the same time.

Klaus giggled at them. They both had way too much faith in him. 

“You guys, I haven’t managed this in weeks--”

“Stop thinking and just do it, Klaus,” said Five, all sympathy as usual. He had definitely stopped crying, which was a relief.

Klaus whirled his hands around. Nothing happened.

"Can't."

“The sooner you manage it, the sooner you can go back to _be-e-e-d_ ,” Five added in a _very_ creepy sing-song voice.

“I can go back to bed if you just _leave_ ,” Klaus sang back, as he wrapped his fingers in his fists and waited for the blue light to once again not appear.

But actually, his hands sparked blue almost immediately.

Ben popped into view, all blue, then faded out as quick as he’d appeared.

“Hi,” said Ben, at the same time he disappeared, right as Five said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” said Klaus to both of them, grinning like a skull. "Hee hee."

Ben sighed as Five whirled on Klaus, his face dark and threatening. “Bring him back, or I’ll tell everyone it was you who stole the last seven of Pogo’s chocolate-chip-and-banana cookies.”

“Oh, how fun, being blackmailed while I’m doing someone a favor.”

“Fine! Bring him back or I’ll tell Mom you’re the one who stole her red heels.”

Klaus gave a long, exasperated sigh. “My slow, sad, sorry child. That’s still blackmail.”

Five blinked his eyes, brow furrowing. He looked at the spot where Ben had been, and then drew himself up in a way that made goosebumps fly down Klaus' arms, it was so eerily similar to Dad.

“Klaus, you listen to me,” instructed Five, all business. “Don’t think about Dad. Stop. I can feel you thinking about Dad, and you have to cut that shit out. Just forget everything you learned from him and focus on all the evil things _I’m_ going to do to you if you don’t manage to manifest Ben. You know, I once shot a lion with a BB gun? And in so doing, saved the life of the U.N. Ambassador? Well, I’m me, and you’re the lion, and if you don’t manifest Ben, I am going to _shoot_ you with a _BB gun_.”

Klaus cracked: he had to laugh, just a little. “That’s the very worst inspirational speech I have _ever_ heard. And I've had pep talks from Ben.”

“I’m reaching for my hip, Klaus…” It was a classic Five thing to say: creepy as hell, and dumb as Diego. 

“You jackass.”

“I’m going to shoot you right in the nuts…”

Laughing, and annoyed about it, Klaus shook his head. This was _not worth it_.

“Wait, keep going, Klaus,” interjected Ben, over Klaus’ muffled snickering and Five's audible growling, “I think I--”

And then, in a burst of radiant blue, Ben’s form crystallized.

Ben’s face lit up.

Five’s face lit up.

Klaus' face probably lit up too.

Okay, it was worth it.

“Um, hi,” squeaked Five, little dork that he was. “Hi, Ben. Good to see you again.” He cleared his throat and asked promptly. “My question is: what was it like, when you died? I need to know for scientific reasons,” he added quickly.

“Oh,” said Ben and Klaus together, exchanging a quick searching look as Ben sat back into the window seat, resting his feet on Klaus’ bed. So it was _this_ conversation again. In the months that had passed since they’d all come back from the Apocalypse, every single one of their siblings except Five had come crying and sniveling into Klaus’ room to talk to Ben about his death, which had been uncomfortable enough each and every time, never mind the fact that Klaus hadn’t managed to sustain Ben’s form for more than four or five seconds at a time, and therefore had to go through about a million rounds of “ _Ben says no, he didn’t feel any pain, and he doesn’t blame you, yada yada,”_ big fat white lies all around -- but at least _they_ had all come in the daylight hours. Even Diego. Klaus really should have insisted on Five booking an appointment, like he’d made Vanya do. He flung himself back on the bed and listened in silence to his brothers’ unfolding conversation.

“Well, I guess you’ve heard the story already--”

“I don’t care about the story. I need to know whether you’ve been awake and aware this entire time.”

Klaus crooked his neck slightly to exchange another glance with Ben, this time a puzzled one. 

“Uh… Yes, I guess you could say I’ve been awake.” _This is taking a weirdly metaphysical turn_ , his tone said. 

“And you’ve been following Klaus around the entire fucking time.”

Ben shrugged. “Being alone sucks.”

“I know,” said Five fervently, and Ben shuddered a little bit; Klaus couldn’t see it, but he could somehow feel Ben shaking from across the room. Klaus shivered, too. He used it as an excuse to snuggle down into his blankets again. His jaw hurt from where Allison had accidentally kicked it while they were training earlier that day. He tried to roll it out without making it click.

Ben broke the silence a couple seconds later. “I get the sense you want to know what Klaus has been up to, then.”

“Huh? No,” said Five dismissively. “As thrilling as your escapades surely were.”

They all fell silent again. Klaus furrowed his brows, trying and failing to think what the purpose was of this unusally open-ended discussion Five had decided to bring down upon them at _four in the fucking morning_.

“What about…” said Five woodenly. “What I mean is--”

“Oh!” cried Ben, somehow divining something from Five’s expression that Klaus, burrowed under the covers as he was, couldn’t see. Immediately he felt the burn of curiosity growing in his core, but he wasn’t about to raise his head from his pillow and thereby give Five tacit forgiveness for storming in here in the dead of-- “You want to know about the other place,” Ben finished, interrupting Klaus’ silent tirade. 

“Yeah,” Five squeaked. “I mean-- _if_ it was there, and not a halluc--”

“It’s not a hallucination,” said Ben. “I go there all the time. Whenever I’m sick of babysitting this one,” he said, his foot hitting Klaus’. Then his voice became ethereal; he sounded very stoned. “It’s great, isn’t it? I love it there; it’s the best.”

“I--”

“What the fuck are you guys talking about,” demanded Klaus, sitting bolt upright again and slamming the door in his haste to laugh scornfully in their hopeful little faces. “That place _sucks_. I couldn’t _wait_ to leave and get back here, and that’s saying something.”

“We’ve discussed this,” said Ben. “Dad's Hair Salon from Hell is not the same place.”

“You’ve been dead, too?” asked Five of Klaus.

“Yeah, when I died in the club, with Luther.”

“Luther died in a club with you?”

“No, I died when I was _in_ a club with--what does it even matter? Wait, _you_ died, too?”

“Yah,” deadpanned Ben immediately.

Klaus threw a pillow at him, making Bluebell dart under the bed. “When and under what circumstances did _you_ die, Five?” 

“Well, I gotta tell ya, it was _not_ and never will be in a club with Luther. I have standards.”

Klaus was out of pillows, so he made a feeble gesture designed to look vaguely like kicking Five in the foot. Ben was chuckling, and Bluebell meowed unhappily. She stretched and strutted her way over to Five, who smiled and grimaced at her as she rubbed against his legs. 

_Stupid cat._

“I was dead for less than a minute,” he answered eventually, his thin hand coming to rest just over the top of Bluebell’s fur. “It was horrible. For about twenty seconds, anyway. And then I felt this _vision_ come over me--”

“Jesus Hallelujah, we’ve got another believer.”

“It wasn’t religious,” Five shook his head. “I mean, it was a _vista_ , a very wide, open place.”

Ben nodded eagerly, his bright, calm smile making a reappearance. “Yeah, that’s the place. Sometimes it feels more like a room when you first get there, but I go there all the time when I’m not here. I can go back and forth pretty quickly now. It was harder at first, before I could hear Klaus calling out for me, but now that I’m used to--”

“Um, Ben, _what_?" Klaus interrupted, unable to hold back his snickering. "I do not _call out_ to you.”

“Maybe not consciously.”

“I think I’d remember if I called you.”

“That’s what unconscious means, you dimwit.”

Klaus opened his mouth to reply, found he had absolutely nothing to go on, and collapsed backwards into his pillow-less bed instead. The other two continued their conversation in low tones Klaus didn’t bother trying to track. _Calling_ Ben…? He hadn’t… He didn’t have any memory of…

(Dad had been terrible, after Ben died. And so had Luther, which Klaus now knew was because Luther had blamed himself… but Klaus had, on any number of times, been at his wit’s end and desperate for his precious number six to come back…)

“Hey, how long have you known that you’re mildly telekinetic?” Five asked Klaus after a few minutes, just as Klaus had started to drift off to sleep again.

“Excuse me?”

“The door.”

“What about it?”

“You closed it. With your mind.”

“Ex- _cuse_ me?” sat up Klaus, baffled and laughing about it. He looked over at the door Five had left ajar when he entered: it was closed. And none of them had gotten up to close it. 

He shivered. _Ghosts._

“Oh, he does that all the time,” said Ben. “Although this is the first time he hasn’t blamed it on a ghost.”

Five, the sleep-deprived little fool, burst out laughing. “That’s amazing.”

“Thank you; I try,” Klaus whispered, his throat dry.

Ben raised his hands and flashed ten fingers at Klaus twice, then jerked his thumbs towards his chest while making a victorious O with his stupid mouth. _Twenty bucks to Ben Hargreeves._

***

So what, Ben had gotten him to cry (without even trying), and had gotten a pity laugh out of him. It was Klaus who Five drank with. Five even _initiated_ their--well, Klaus didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but it was eight o’clock on a Wednesday night, and he was pretty sure Five was _voluntarily hanging out with him._

(They were probably due for another Apocalypse any minute now).

“Do you remember our first mission to Paris, when we were twelve?” said Five, dreamy-eyed and definitely tipsy.

“Damn, Five,” replied Klaus, a little concerned, in spite of himself. “You are still a major _lightweight._ You’ve brought up the Paris trip four times in the last ten minutes.”

“Oh, really?” he shrugged, a happy smile on his creepy little face. “Well, I’m only thirteen. Sorta. It’s not my fault. This wine is weird.”

“But you drink… spirits.”

He waved a hand into the warm summery air around them. “That’s irrelevant.”

They were perched on the kerb outside a quickie mart attached to a gas station, although not the same gas station they had stolen alcohol, iced tea, and shit ton of sour gummy bears from ten minutes ago. Klaus was stuffing his face with the pink and green bears, and Five was hastily drinking very cheap wine straight from the can.

“I am so good at burglary,” said Five, pink-cheeked, waxing poetic as he stared admiringly at their haul, and at the can in his hand.

Klaus scoffed. “Not as good as me.”

“Better.”

“You have to be shitting me. I am the _king_ of minor theft, and I don’t need any spatial jumping tricks to prove it.” 

“I’m better than everyone at everything.”

Klaus drummed his fingers on the side of his Snapple, feeling sneaky and overconfident. “Are you better than me at Ten Fingers?”

Five choked on his wine and laughed. “Play Ten Fingers against _you_? Hell no.”

“Oh, come on!”

Five smiled, actually grinned, at that. Belatedly, Klaus realized Five had -- _no effing way --_ Five had actually laughed at his suggestion. He had choked on the wine, too, but he had genuinely, actually laughed. Klaus curled his head back, grinning triumphantly. He couldn’t _wait_ to brag to Ben about it. 

“...Is Ben still here?” Five asked, as though he had access to Klaus’ thoughts. They were all syncing up again, speaking into each other’s silences with all the right words.

“No,” said Klaus. “He stayed for the larceny, but left when we got here.” 

Five nodded. He looked strangely gratified, like _he’d_ been waiting for this moment, too. Klaus quirked his head to one side, caught Five’s un-smile, the one with the warm and

active eyes, and then Klaus nodded vigorously in silent agreement. 

_This is our memory_.

“How many years has it been, for you?”

Five looked up at the stars. Tallying, no doubt. He pushed his mouth to one side.

“Never mind,” amended Klaus. “Drunk-math is no fun.”

“Drunk-math is the only kind of fun there is. Period.”

“What about drunk-physics?”

“...Touche.”

“For me, it’s been about… forty...billion? Billion, million years since we were twelve or thirteen the first time, drinking wine from a gas station.”

Five raised an eyebrow. “I think your drunk math is a little faulty.”

“I think your--”

“Mom is a little faulty,” they finished at the same time. 

This time they _both_ chuckled, a just-a-little-longer-than-warranted, tipsy chuckle at an uninspired joke. It felt so damn good -- just the two of them, back in action, stealing shit from gas stations, while the others were at home safely tucked in their beds.

Klaus checked the watch on Five’s wrist: 8:17PM, just two minutes past Luther’s bedtime. The sun had just finished sinking, and the moon was rising. It was so nice out, Klaus almost wanted to peel off his thin jacket and feel the warm wind against his bare shoulders. He rarely went jacketless these days. Not when he was with his family, anyway. He hated the way his siblings, Five included, perceptibly winced whenever they remembered he had a tattoo on his bicep. 

(They still didn’t talk about it).

“Will you stay?” Klaus asked after a long enough silence. 

“I think so,” said Five in a calm, measured voice. “What about you?”

The question caught Klaus off-guard. His immediate answer was _no duh_ , but on second thought -- well, he didn’t want to become a burden. Again. He’d hated the way he had sponged off of Diego, for years and years in their early twenties. (And late twenties, to be honest). He hated how Luther still looked down on him sometimes, superciliously, the way Dad always had. (Unless Luther happened to be high out of his mind, at which point Luther _looked up to him_ \-- which was another damn bag of crazy, altogether). He disliked how Vanya still didn’t laugh at his jokes, hardly ever (he tried so hard, but she…). He hated how much he missed Allison when she was in California every other two weeks; it was almost easier not to see her at all, like they’d done for the past decade.

And Ben wanted Klaus to move back into the Academy, and -- Klaus hated the tiny part of himself that just didn’t _want_ _to_ , because he was just a tiny bit tired of letting his guilt about Ben’s death influence his choices…

(But he would do anything, _anything_ , for Ben).

“Yeah,” said Klaus, resigning himself to his fate. He hadn’t even decided for sure until that very moment. “Yeah, I will.”

“Good,” said Five, exhaling loudly, then taking another long drink from his can of wine. He quietly started du-du-duuing the Ride of the Valkyries.

“HA! I told you he’d laugh at the ice cream truck. Oh wait, sorry, Ben’s still not here.”

“Now who’s the lightweight.”

“Five, I’m not drunk on Snapple Tea.”

“Did you two have a bet that I’d kill Luther?”

“Ha! No. But that wouldn’t have been a bad bet, honestly.”

Five was silent for a few minutes, thinking what were no doubt unfathomably deep thoughts with his big genius intellect. 

After a bit, he came up with: “First one to make Luther laugh without using a Diego impersonation wins twenty bucks.”

Klaus smirked into the moonlight. 

“You’re on.”

* * *


End file.
